XTC
by Henry Wyckoff
Crossover: XF, DW (4th Doctor), HL, ST:Voy, and the world of David Eddings

Chapter 3

The flight was quite nice, Scully noted, which was what made
her nervous. Very nervous. Nothing was supposed to be this
prosaic. After her time with Mulder, she had grown used to
the unexpected as a norm, and the expected as a trap.
Subtly, she checked her gun and took off the safety, sighing
in relief when she saw that nobody was paying attention to
her. Even so, her pulse was still racing, as if she *knew*
that something was about to happen.

"Are you well?" asked someone in the seat next to her, his
voice thoroughly British.

Scully turned without managing to show her surprise, and saw a young man with a concerned look on his face. She almost smiled lopsidedly as she thought how cute he looked,
in a mature yet still boyish sort of way. He wasn't
muscular, but he had a look of strength and stamina about
him. His hands were certainly working hands. He wore a
business suit, however, which was odd. Maybe he played
tennis. "Yes, thank you," she tried to smile. But she was
still nervous, especially when she saw that he wasn't buying
it. "Nothing's wrong."

He nodded, "Normally, I'd keep it to myself, but when
someone clicks off the safety of their gun in the middle of
a plane, I come to the conclusion that it's my business
after all. Are you Interpol or federal?"

Scully stared at this man, instantly reassessing him. He
may have been glib, but he certainly had something
underneath the surface that Scully knew that she shouldn't
ignore. He wasn't as sharp as the law enforcement type, and
not shady enough to be a drug runner -- if anything, he had
a laid-back, almost bohemian style to himself, as if he was
a jazz musician. She looked at his hands once more, and saw
that the ring and middle fingers of his left hand were
joined together by habit, while all the right-hand fingers
were spread out in a tense/relaxed sort of way, which was
indicative of a guitar player. "FBI." Scully thought that
honesty was the best policy. "What are you?"

"Moi?" he smiled radiantly, holding out his hand. "Adam
Pierson, at your service." His hand was strong as steel,
but gentle enough to be caressing. His voice softened and
lowered in volume, "Just so you can fill your public service
quota for the day, is there anything I should know about the
safety of this plane?"

Rather than be offended, she giggled, "No! I'm just
nervous, that's all."

"So you're afraid of what you'll meet when you land?"

Scully knew that she shouldn't be talking at all, but there
was something about Adam that made her open up, and she
couldn't help but nod, "Isn't that always the case?"

Adam nodded, "Could I get you something to drink?"

Before her mind could stop her reflexes, those reflexes
said, "Yes." Before she knew it, she was sipping a Dewar's
on the rocks.

* * * *

When she hit Dallas, Jan Hendricksen got on the plane. When
Scully saw him, she had to hold back an involuntary gasp.
He was a dream in the flesh: tall, muscular,
healthily-tanned, energetic, and a nice face all in the same
package. He must have been over six feet tall and looked
like he could easily juggle a few cars. Jan spotted Scully
as easily as she had spotted him, and stopped by her seat,
"Agent Scully?" His accent was clearly from North Dakota, a
faint touch of Scandinavia blended with a Midwestern accent.
"I'm Jan Hendricksen."

She nodded, "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I can be." He sat down in the seat behind
hers, with nobody sharing his row. It wouldn't have
mattered anyway, because he was more concerned about the
immortal sitting next to Agent Scully, and judging from the
look on her face, she didn't even know this man. It
appeared as if the man was flirting with her, and Jan
decided he'd back off and do something productive. "Is
there anything else you want me to know?"

Scully thought about it for a moment. "Take a look at
this." She handed him a folder, and as the plane took off,
he read through it.

Adam Pierson, a.k.a. Methos, couldn't help but take in the
hidden cues. He knew that something big was going down, but
he didn't know what. He could also see that Jan was hiding
something from Scully, just as Scully was hiding something
from Jan. Jan looked like he was trying to hide a great
deal of pain. He also hid the fact that he was immortal
quite well, because when he'd approached Methos, he hadn't let
it show that he had sensed the presence of an immortal,
which was no trivial thing.

* * * *

Jan read the files. They restated what he had known from
the beginning: that an individual or small group (run by the
individual) was dumping XTC in a very concentrated area, and
as the person moved, so did the drug distribution. The
funny thing was that as the person moved on, the XTC use
stopped, because everyone using it died. Apparently, the
pimp who was selling the poison wanted the type of satisfied
customers who died happy, and didn't live to come back for
more. It was also a drug that was blind to socio-economic:
rich and poor, black and white were viewed with equal
discrimination.

Nobody knew who the head honcho was, but a few of the
sellers lived long enough to move with the drugs. They were
black and Latino pimps, and Jan felt his stomach shrivel
when he recognized the pimp who killed David. Just a pimp
though, and not the head honcho. He swore that he'd hold
himself back and force himself to seek out the leader, and
only then would he allow himself to grasp revenge. Sooner
or later, even if it took a thousand years, he would make
those monsters pay for what they did to David, and perhaps
to all the other hundreds or thousands like David who died
in their own vomit, smiling like the Joker.

He looked up to find that the immortal had turned around to
face him. "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad." It
sounded like a lighthearted, typical British statement, but
underneath Jan could sense the gravity of the Brit's
intention.

"It's much worse, and will worsen as time passes."

The immortal shrugged and looked forward again. Jan could
hear the man mutter, "A sunset has two faces."

It took a while for Jan to figure that one out.

* * * *

In the Captain's ready room, all the important people were
seated: Captain Janeway, Tuvok, Chakotay, Pancho, the
Doctor, and his travelling companion, Sarah.

Janeway got things started, "All right now, the one question
I have is what are you and how did you come to be on my
ship?"

The Doctor downplayed the importance of the question, "I'm
the Doctor, as I've already told you, and I came to be on
your ship by complete accident: I was trying to land in
Tijuana. We need a vacation, you see."

If Janeway were watching this from elsewhere, she might have
even laughed, but as it was, all she wanted to do was put
her head in her hands. "But how did that box appear on our
bridge?"

The Doctor was hesitant, as if he were almost reluctant to
say anything, "That 'box' as you put it, is my TARDIS."

"And?"

"It's how I travel."

"How does it travel?"

He beamed, "Very well, thank you!"

Tuvok spoke up before things got really ugly, "I believe
what the Captain is trying to ask, is by what means your
TARDIS travels."

"I refuse to answer on the grounds of Xeno's Paradox."

"WHAT?!" Janeway sputtered.

"Xeno stated that motion is inherently impossible, so I
refuse to speculate on how my TARDIS travels, when it
obviously cannot."

Janeway slammed her hand on the table, "Dammit! You're not
fooling anyone! Now I would appreciate it if you could
answer some direct questions! You mentioned trying to get
to Mexico. Can you take us back to Earth?"

He held up his hands, "I'm really sorry, but my vehicle only
seats two."

Pancho spoke up, "Captain, he's holding something back."
The Doctor looked intently at Pancho, who continued after a
moment of nervousness, "His TARDIS warps space. It may look
small on the outside, but it's perhaps as large as Voyager
on the inside."

"How is that possible?" demanded the Captain.

"I don't know how, but somehow the TARDIS manages to
maintain two spatial scales at once."

"So that is how the ship was confused when it scanned the
TARDIS?" Tuvok asked.

"Yes. I remember that much from when I met the Doctor
before. I also know that he can take us back to Earth in
real time if he so chose."

Janeway frowned. The skeptic in her was screaming that this
was all a bunch of nonsense and trickery, but the hope
within her was clouding her judgment, and forcing her to
believe in the possibility of reaching home within moments.
"Why are you reluctant to help us, Doctor? Is there a
reason?"

The Doctor was irritated now that his cover was blown by
someone living in a glass house, but he kept it in. "I'm
reluctant, since our esteemed Pancho Villa has raised the
issue, because I follow my own code of ethics, which would
define my aiding in your trip home as wrong and dangerous."

"Why? Are you from the future?" asked Tuvok.

The Doctor shrugged. "Past. Present. Future. It has no
meaning, since it all depends on your reference. All I know
is that aiding you in the way you claim you want would not
be help in any way. I really wish I could take you back, if
it helps, but I'm constrained as much as you are by your own
Prime Directive. Consider your own positions when you've
found conflicts." He looked at Janeway. "No matter how
much your heart told you to help a group of people, don't
you understand the importance of standing back and not
interfering?"

Janeway nodded, "There have been times when I have
understood the importance of the Prime Directive, but I have
also understood that rules are meant to serve us, and not to
chain us. Many of us have broken the Prime Directive when
we deemed it necessary, and though we sometimes make
mistakes, or are reprimanded for our decisions, we still
stand by those decisions. Would you not reconsider your own
position?"

He shook his head immediately. "Not for a moment."

It was then that Sarah spoke up. "What harm can it do?
They're only trying to get home!"

The Doctor nodded. "Trying to get home to a planet many
light years away, doing what?" Sarah didn't know what to
say, so he answered for her. "They're going home,
interacting with everyone they come across. What would have
happened if they had not been here in this quadrant? Once
we start playing with other possibilities, we risk altering
the very future."

Pancho spoke up, "I recall speaking with an Alan Powys a few
cen--" he caught himself, and the Doctor raised his eyebrows
in surprise, for two reasons, "--a while ago, anyway, and he
told me about something called the Many Worlds Theory, which
is, he claimed, a theoretical implication of Schroedinger's
Wave Equation. Schroedinger's Cat, for instance. Where the
universe splits up into two totally different universes when
decisions are made, and so there isn't a single universe and
a single timeline, but rather an infinite amount of quantum
choices that take us to an infinite variety of universes."

Janeway nodded, "I remember hearing similar theories in the
Academy, though they were never resolved. Are you
suggesting then that it is impossible to disrupt the
future?"

Pancho shrugged, "Only that all the possibilities already
exist, and that we would merely be choosing our future." He
looked at the Doctor, "Isn't that true?"

He shook his head, "Even among my own kind, it is has never
been proven. You will note that I have consistently
travelled through time without entering alternate universes.
If we can leave the philosophy aside, I think that fact
confirms the fact that there is a future, and it has to
happen a certain way. If it were otherwise, then I would
have felt no qualms about destroying the Daleks."

"Who?" everyone asked, looking at one another.

"The Daleks!" Sarah nearly screamed. "Surely you've heard
of them!"

Pancho shrugged. "Never heard of them. I think you'll find
that the computer will have no record of them either."
Something just occurred to him. "Doctor? I think you'll
find, if you think about it, that you've just stepped
sideways in time. You left a timeline where the Daleks were
a reality to a timeline where the Daleks never existed. Any
ideas?"

The Doctor was shaking his head, "I can't believe this is
happening! It's never happened before!"

"Has it?" Pancho smiled knowingly.

"That was different! The future had been reshaped, and we
made it return to its normal course!"

"Or perhaps, we made quantum decisions that took us to a
certain future, and then returned to the present from which
we left and made subsequent quantum decisions that returned
us?"

The Doctor stared at him. "Do you realize what you're
suggesting?"

"Do you?"

The Doctor was clearly disturbed.

Janeway tapped Pancho on the shoulder and pulled him aside
to an adjacent conference room. She was furious. "Why have
you hidden this from us?"

Pancho was startled, "What do you mean?"

Janeway nearly yelled, "About the Doctor or his capacity for
time travel! About all the things you never volunteered to
us!"

Pancho was soft-spoken, "I rescued you and this ship from
the Borg. I've already volunteered more than most do. I've
also given more than you could possibly know. Everyone on
this ship owes me their lives, ten incarnations over.
Everyone. Even Q, when he appeared on this ship, owes me.
Watch your words, I'm warning you." He turned to leave.

Janeway grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back around. "YOU
WILL TREAT ME WITH RESPECT! We may be out in the middle of
nowhere, but I am your Captain, and that still means
something!"

He bowed mockingly, "I give you respect as a Captain, but
I'm giving you a good knock of sense that you deserve as a
human being. Until you start walking on water and turning
water into wine, you'd better remember that you're a human
being. I thought you were learning that lesson, but I see
you've backslid."

Janeway stared at him, then her head slumped forward. "I'm
sorry," she whispered. "I really am. I just don't know
what to do. Here we are, facing someone who can take us
home, and he won't."

His voice softened. "Then shove it out of your mind.
There's nothing he can do about it, and you know it, so just
forget about it. You've done a good job at forgetting all
the other failed attempts and keeping your eyes forward."
"What do you know about this Doctor?"

Pancho sighed, hoping that she'd just drop it, "Not as much
as I'd like, but enough to know that you should back off.
Trust me on this."

When they returned to the ready room, nothing had improved.
Janeway sighed, "I truly regret giving you a welcome like
this. Of course you should be welcomed as a friend, but you
must understand that we're also very desperate, and must
aggressively pursue any opportunity to return home as soon
as we can."

The Doctor nodded, "I can truly appreciate that. If I could
help you in any way, you know I could, but I can't." He
brightened, returning to his childlike mood, "But perhaps
you can find something on the planet below!"

* * * *

Silk stared at Powys warily. "What are you? If you're a
sorcerer, how come I've never heard of you?"

Powys laughed softly, "You've never heard of me because I've
attended to my own business. Besides, I've been on this
world for only a few weeks."

Zedar called out from the tent, "They've come!"

Silk looked around and saw some bright flashes from the
forest about a hundred yards away. They faded back to
darkness. Powys called out to that place, "Over here!"

A few moments later, some oddly-garbed people approached.
Only two of them appeared like normal folk: a middle-aged
man who looked almost as roguish as Belgarath, and a young
woman with the look of an Arend, without the look of vacancy
in her eyes that most Arends cultivated.

"Alan Powys!" exclaimed the man, grasping Powys' hand and
shaking it vigorously. "I had no idea that you moved around
like this!"

Powys smiled dryly, "There's a lot about me that you don't
know. I was wondering if we might be able to hitch a ride
with you. Myself, Silk, and Zedar, who's sitting in the
tent right now. It's quite urgent, you see."

The Doctor tilted his head, "Urgent?"

Powys' face became firm.

"I see."

Powys became lighthearted once more as he patted Silk on the
shoulder, "Silk, you're about to embark on the greatest
adventure!"

Silk muttered, "That's what I'm afraid of."

In the meantime, several of the strangers began to speak
with Powys in a language that Silk couldn't speak. That
didn't stop him, however, from reading the mood of this
conversation. The strangers' expressions showed disbelief,
irritation, and flat-out stubbornness. Why, Silk didn't
know, but he knew it had something to do with the presence
of Powys.

Silk, having been a well-travelled man, prided himself on
being able to tell where a man was from by looking at his
face, listening to his accent, or placing his language, but
he had to admit that he had never heard this language or
accent before, nor seen the clothes. These were true strangers.

If Silk could somehow have understood the language spoken, the
conversation would have been this:

Chakotay: "What are you?"

Powys: "I'm a human. Does that bother you?"

C: "No... I just find it odd, seeing as where we are. How
did you get here?"

P: "I hitched a ride. Now, I was wondering if I might be
able to hitch a ride with you."

C: "Who brought you here?"

P: "Some two-headed guy. I never really got his name."

C: "That's great. Since you know about space travel, we
have no real problem with taking you aboard, but what about
the other two? They look like locals, and they don't have
the technology for space travel!"

P: "Your precious Prime Directive, I forgot about that. Let
me put it to you this way: there's an upcoming crisis, and
they're essential to its solution, as are the Doctor and his
companion, you, and the two others on the ship, Pancho Villa
and Duncan MacLeod."

C: (Staring at Powys) "How did you know that?"

P: "This is getting old. How about discussing this on the
ship?""

Chakotay and the others stared at one another. This was
getting really strange, and the one word, or rather
'letter', going through their minds was 'Q'. Only Q would
have this kind of information, but then again, there was
nothing to keep Q from hopping on board the ship whenever he
wanted to.

Chakotay signaled the Captain. "Captain? We have a rather
unusual situation down here."

Meanwhile, the Doctor had made his way into the tent, where
Zedar was backing away from him. The Doctor held out his
hand, "Want a jelly baby?"

Zedar cautiously took one and ate it. He smiled a little.
"Hello."

"Hello. I'm the Doctor."

"I'm Zedar."

"Not Belzedar?" The Doctor's eyes were knowing.

Zedar flinched. "I relinquished that name many eons ago
when I betrayed my Master." He looked at the floor, "When
Belgarath imprisoned me beneath Cthol Mishrak, I wish he
had killed me instead of trapping me forever beneath the
ground."

"Maybe he couldn't bring himself to do it."

"Belgarath was always a good man, even though he was a
drunkard rogue."

* * * *

The plane landed in Tucson without any incident. Scully and
Jan left to rent a car, while Methos went his own way, or so
they thought. Against his better judgment, Methos kept an
eye on those two, because he knew that something was up.
He'd have to keep his distance, however, because Jan knew of
his immortality, and knew what it meant to sense an
immortal.